A newlywed 30-something couple becomes homeowners...of a house built in 1916. Join us on our journey to make this house our forever home. Renos, DIY, decorating, successes and failures. It should be an interesting journey.

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Sunday, May 19, 2013

As I mentioned previously, we did some damage to the plaster ceiling in the stairwell on moving day.

oops!

One of our friends was kind enough to source the plaster we would need for the repair (Thanks Nutty!). Magically, a 5 gallon pail of restoration plaster and a box of finishing plaster appeared at our door one day. We also need some gypsum for the repair.

just needs a final coat of paint

The Mr. took the lead on the repair. This was a very good thing as the repair was not a one day process and required a fair amount of patience. Anyone who knows me will understand why this was not the job for me. After carefully building up the damaged areas with layers of gypsum, the restoration plaster was used to match up to the rest of the wall/ceiling. The finishing plaster was then applied to create the final layer and texture. The Mr. experimented a bit to find a technique that would create a pattern similar to what was currently on the ceiling. He had good success. A couple coats of paint and it is as good as new old.

This is an interesting feature of our new, old house. This door on the stairway landing doesn't go anywhere. There is just nicely painted drywall behind it. The previous owners thought that the original floor plan might had had a double stairway and that the door would have led to stairs to the kitchen. Who knows. That's as good a guess as any. It is curious that the door was left in place, rather than just making it a plain wall.

Anyway, we have had many discussions about what we could put behind the door to nowhere. A skeleton? Seasonal decorations? Paint a mural? So many options...

The Mr. working hard to remove the drywall from behind the door.

Finally, we came up with the idea of trying to turn the space behind the door into a bookcase. There was minimal clearance behind the door and we couldn't make it any deeper due to it backing directly onto our kitchen cabinets. We measured and figured that the shelves will just fit paperbacks if we maximize the space we have. The Mr. did a wonderful job turning a not-quite-square doorway into a bookcase with level shelves. He even figured out how to make the base part match the existing trim. A fine job all around. We both feel that it turned out great and is a wonderful use of the space. It was also nice to be able to empty a few more boxes from the basement :-)